Wantz Strikes Out Career High 11 In Bees Loss

The Salt Lake Bees came up short in Wednesday’s contest against the Tacoma Rainiers, falling by a final score of 7-4.

The story of the game from the outset was the performances of the starting pitchers, as Salt Lake’s Andrew Wantz and Tacoma’s Jhonathan Diaz had their best stuff working all night long. Wantz made it through six innings in his outing, allowing just two hits and one earned run while striking out a career-high 11 batters. The excellent showing was matched almost one-for-one on the other side by Diaz, as the lefty held his former team off the scoreboard entirely through six frames while punching out 10 hitters of his own. This marked the first time in Bees franchise history that both starting pitchers reached double-digit strikeouts in one game.

The Rainiers got things going in the top of the seventh after Wantz’s departure, pushing across three runs against reliever Adam Kolarek to increase their advantage to four. The Bees would score a run in the seventh and eighth to get on the board with a sacrifice fly off the bat of Bryce Teodosio and an RBI single by Zach Humphreys. Tacoma would tack on three insurance runs in the ninth which would prove crucial as the Bees got a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth on a RBI double from Teodosio and on a Tacoma error, but the Rainiers were able to escape the jam with the tying run at the plate.

The Bees and Rainiers have three games remaining in the series with the next one scheduled for 6:35 p.m. on Friday night.